People of the Whirlpool eBook

“P. S.—­Josephus has just come
back! Lean, and singed by hot ashes, I judge.
I dread the shock to him when he knows about the yard!”

III

MARTIN CORTRIGHT’S LETTERS TO BARBARA AND DOCTOR RICHARD RUSSELL

“December 10, 19—.

“MY DEAR BARBARA:—­

“You have often asked me to write you something
of myself, my youth, but where shall I begin?

“I sometimes think that I must have been born
facing backward, and a fatality has kept me walking
in that direction ever since, so wide a space there
seems to be to-day between myself and those whose age
shows them to be my contemporaries.

“My father, being a man of solid position both
in commerce and society, and having a far greater
admiration for men of art and letters than would have
been tolerated by his wholly commercial Knickerbocker
forbears, I, his youngest child and only son, grew
up to man’s estate among the set of contemporaries
that formed his world, men of literary and social parts,
whose like I may safely say, for none will contradict,
are unknown to the rising generation of New Yorkers;
for not only have types changed, but also the circumstances
and appreciations under which the development of those
types was possible.

“In my nineteenth year events occurred that
altered the entire course of my life, for not only
did the almost fatal accident and illness that laid
me low bar my study of a profession, but it rendered
me at the same time, though I did not then realize
it, that most unfortunate of beings, the semi-dependent
son of parents whose overzeal to preserve a boy’s
life that is precious, causes them to deprive him
of the untrammelled manhood that alone makes the life
worth living.

“I always had a bent for research, a passion
for following the history of my country and city to
its fountain heads. I devoured old books, journals,
and the precious documents to which my father had ready
access, that passed from the attic treasure chests
of the old houses in decline to the keeping of the
Historical Society. As a lad I besought every
gray head at my father’s table to tell me a
story, so what more natural, under the circumstances,
than that my father should make me free of his library,
and say: ’I do not expect or desire you
to earn your living; I can provide for you. Here
are companions, follow your inclinations, live your
own life, and do not be troubled by outside affairs.’
At first I was too broken in health and disappointed
in ambition to rebel, then inertia became a habit.

“As my health unexpectedly improved and energy
moved me to reassert myself and step out, a soft hand
was laid on mine—­the hand of my mother,
invalided at my birth, retired at forty from a world
where she had shone by force of beauty and wit—­and
a gentle voice would say: ’Stay with me,
my son, my baby. Oh, bear with me a little longer.
If you only knew the comfort it is to feel that you
are in the house, to hear your voice. You will
pen a history some day that will bring you fame, and
you will read it to me here—­we two, all
alone in my chamber, before the world hears it.’
So I stayed on. How mother love often blinds the
eyes to its own selfishness.